Americans reject war in Syria

Sunday

Sep 15, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By MAC THROWER

Observing the local and national response to President Obama’s push for a military strike on Syria, I began to sense that an era in politics and U.S. foreign policy was coming to an end.There is always a risk of reading too much into the shifting sands of public opinion. But in the past 25 years, I have never seen such an overwhelmingly negative public response to a president’s proposal to use military force against a foreign dictator.Most American wars have been controversial at home. Yes, World War II brought unity, but the Korean War, the Vietnam War and our two wars in Iraq provoked debate and opposition on the home front. Yet, in each of these wars, many, and in some instances, most Americans supported the president’s policies.“Limited” military actions in Grenada, Panama, Kosovo and Libya were conducted with little public opposition. And the Obama administration contemplated a very limited bombing campaign against Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, whose regime evidently used chemical weapons — weapons of mass destruction banned by international treaties — against its own people in that country’s bloody civil war.But Americans from across the ideological spectrum have voiced objections to a military strike against Syria. They’ve made those objections known to their congressional representatives in phone calls, letters and comments at town hall meetings. Recent polls show that around 65 percent of Americans oppose an attack on Syria.Letters to the editor provide an unscientific sampling of opinion in a community. But I’ve observed that a heavy volume of letters on one side of an issue is a pretty strong indication of public sentiment in a newspaper’s circulation area.The letters we’ve received from News-Journal readers are almost unanimously opposed to U.S. military action in Syria. We haven’t had a single clear endorsement of the use of force against Assad’s regime. This is surprising. In a limited military action or at the beginning of a war, the public usually is inclined to support the commander in chief. Our readers are not saluting the president this time, however. And many don’t seem to be motivated by partisanship.Donald Hartnett of Ormond Beach captured the prevailing mood with his letter. “I can’t believe that the U.S. is seriously considering military action in Syria,” Hartnett wrote. “We cannot continue to be the planet’s police force.”Tami Lewis, a member of the Ponce Inlet Town Council, believes that “our country is facing another long-term commitment to an expensive, unwinnable war.”A theme emerges in our letters on Syria: After 12 years of war in the Middle East and a number of limited military operations since the 1980s, let’s stop trying to remake the world in our image.Congress has gotten the message from the grass-roots. The president was looking at the likelihood of defeat on a congressional use-of-force resolution before Russian President Vladimir Putin sought a deal on putting Syria’s chemical arsenal under international control.Before the U.S.-Russia deal announced Saturday, two congressmen from our area, Ron DeSantis and John Mica, came out against an attack. DeSantis is associated with the tea party and Mica is a stalwart of the Republican establishment. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war. But since the end of World War II, Congress has repeatedly deferred to the president on the power to make war. I’m not sure if the congressional response to Syria is an exception to the rule of the last six decades — brought on mainly by President Obama’s sounding of a very uncertain trumpet — or if it marks a new attitude toward the president’s war powers. I am sure, however, that public opinion is driving the debate on Syria. For better or worse, Americans are telling Washington they don’t want more “wars of choice” — at least not in the always-volatile Middle East.There may be something else going on, as Peggy Noonan, who wrote speeches for George H.W. Bush, argued in a column in The Wall Street Journal. “The Syria debate isn’t, really, a struggle between libertarians and neoconservatives, or left and right, or Democrats and Republicans,” she wrote. “It looks more like a fight between the country and Washington . ...”An imperial presidency, an arrogant, aloof Congress, an entrenched ruling elite in Washington. Could it be that Americans are rejecting the whole federal establishment? Maybe not. But the country is growing more restive, more skeptical of the powers that be, with long-term consequences that are difficult to predict.Thrower is the opinion page editor of The News-Journal. Email him at mac.thrower@news-jrnl.com.